


there's no one else (i'd rather hold)

by clawsnbeak



Series: Pynch Prompt Collection [10]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam Parrish Loves Ronan Lynch, But probably not in the way you think, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Jealousy, M/M, Ronan Lynch Has Feelings, Ronan Lynch Loves Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch is Bad at Feelings, chainsaw is heavily featured, like a lot of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:08:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23175958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clawsnbeak/pseuds/clawsnbeak
Summary: "For as long as Ronan could remember, everything he dreamt was a reflection of himself, his feelings and emotions implemented in whatever he decided to give life to in his dreams. Often, these feelings and emotions were unconscious, something Ronan wasn’t aware of before he saw them play out in real life.The first time Chainsaw landed on Adam’s shoulder, gently nipping at his fingers as Adam had reached up to ruffle her feathers Ronan knew he was in trouble."
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Series: Pynch Prompt Collection [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1417012
Comments: 8
Kudos: 232





	there's no one else (i'd rather hold)

For as long as Ronan could remember, everything he dreamt was a reflection of himself, his feelings and emotions implemented in whatever he decided to give life to in his dreams. Often, these feelings and emotions were unconscious, something Ronan wasn’t aware of before he saw them play out in real life.

The first time Chainsaw landed on Adam’s shoulder, gently nipping at his fingers as Adam had reached up to ruffle her feathers Ronan knew he was in trouble.

Chainsaw had taken a liking to Adam from the start. She had been too shy, however, to interact with him. Instead, she stared intensely at Adam every chance she got, much like her creator, flying away whenever Adam happened to look in her general direction. 

This went on for a while.

Then Ronan stopped hating himself.

Chainsaw became a lot more affectionate after Ronan stopped denying his feelings. Adam’s shoulder had become a permanent residence for the raven and Ronan couldn’t blame her, he would be touching Adam on any occasion too if he thought Adam would let him.

Adam didn’t seem to mind either, always petting Chainsaw or ruffling her feathers, blissfully unaware of the implications of this, how she was really a part of Ronan’s soul embedded into the body of a raven. 

Chainsaw was all too happy with the attention, preening at Adam’s careful fingers and fond gaze, something Ronan had dreamed about having directed at himself for months.

“I think she likes you better than me,” he had said one night at St. Agnes, a loaded confession disguised by an off-handed comment.

Adam laughed at that, something soft and fleeting. Ronan wanted to catch the laugh and put it in a bottle to listen to when the loneliness he often felt was threatening to rip him apart.

“I wonder why,” Adam shot back, his tone sarcastic but not unkind. He scratched underneath Chainsaw’s chin, Ronan had to clench his hands into fists at the sight before he did or said something stupid. Something that would reveal too much of himself and set him up for the eventual rejection he would like to procrastinate until he was less vulnerable, if that time ever came. 

Chainsaw watched him knowingly, he had always dreamt up his creatures too smart for their own good. It almost seemed as if she was smiling mockingly. “Look! I’ve got Adam’s hands on me, something you’ve always wanted but never been the recipient of.”

Ronan stuck out his tongue at the bird when Adam wasn’t watching and went back to laying on the floor with a sour expression, his headphones back on his ears to drown everything out.

Not that much later, Ronan felt a soft kick to his boot and opened his eyes to Adam staring at him, Chainsaw tucked against his chest. 

“I’m going to bed,” Adam said softly once Ronan had removed his headphones with the customary eye roll. It took him only a few seconds to realise why Adam had reduced his voice to a whisper.

Ronan felt his mouth pull back into an involuntary sneer. “Why the fuck should I care, Parrish,” he said loudly, waking up Chainsaw who glared at him. He would have felt bad for her if there wasn’t a hot surge of _something awful_ coursing through his body at the sight of her nestled against Adam’s body, all protected and warm while he was reduced to sleep on the floor with only his jacket as a sorry excuse for a pillow.

“Jesus, Lynch,” Adam said, his tone reprimanding, his eyes disbelieving. Ronan tried to shake it off like he often had in the past without issue. He had been on the receiving end of that exact expression more times than he could count, but it usually not Adam who was looking at him like that, talking to him like he was something else than just “Ronan”. Something to be ashamed of maybe.

Ronan shrugged, pretended he had brushed the comment off and went right back to closing his eyes, ignoring the happy squawks Chainsaw let out when he was allowed in Adam’s bed. 

Ronan’s blood only boiled further until he was so close to saying something he sat up immediately. He shook out his jacket and put it on, ignoring the confusion on Adam’s tongue. 

“Ronan-”

“You can babysit the bird tonight,” he said before he walked out of the door. He was down the stairs before Adam could even comprehend what had just happened, he was in his car before Adam looked down at Chainsaw who looked back with a guilty expression.

Nothing ever escaped Adam, especially not when Ronan was the subject of his watchful gaze. 

Ronan knew this, he knew he would have to explain himself in the morning but with the wide expanse of the highway stretched in front of him, the deafening beat of some song he had randomly burned on one of his tapes drumming through the thoughts nagging in his brain, he really didn’t care.

He knew Adam, despite his best efforts to remain unknowable so when the next day rolled around and Adam kept glancing at him from his locker, Chainsaw still on perched on his shoulder, Ronan sighed and closed the door, stepping right into Adam’s face. “What?” he asked, though he knew exactly what Adam was going to ask next.

“What happened last night?” Adam asked as if they had rehearsed this.

Ronan kept to the script. “Nothing special.”

It wasn’t a lie but it wasn’t the truth either. 

Adam lifted one of his eyebrows with practised ease. “I don’t believe that.”

“I don’t give a shit about what you believe,” Ronan sneered back. This time it was more lie than truth. He watched as Adam looked around the hallway, catching some people glancing at them. They once had been notorious for fighting at any given moment but that changed over the months they had known each other. Now, when they happened to fight, it was treated as a new piece of gossip, happily spread between the bored boys of Aglionby.

“Meet me at St. Agnes tonight?” Adam asked. Ronan treated it as a command. He could never say no to Adam and somewhere deep within him, he knew Adam knew this but that was something he wasn’t ready to think about yet.

Ronan nodded and watched as Adam walked off, Chainsaw still on his shoulder, ignoring Ronan completely.

As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he did miss Chainsaw, the bird he had hand-fed through the early stages of her life and as much as he loved fighting, he hated fighting with her.

The evening couldn’t come early enough. 

By now, Ronan had memorised Adam’s schedule to the minute. That didn’t prevent him from showing up late to St. Agnes. It was half an hour after Adam got off from work and Ronan had sought out every excuse to be this late. He marked it off as being busy but he knew the real reason. 

He didn’t want to seem too eager and scare Adam off.

He knocked on his apartment door obnoxiously, impatiently waiting until Adam opened the door. 

His hands were still a little dirty with leftover motor oil, his hair in disarray, no doubt from going through it with his hands when he was looking at one of the few exercises he didn’t understand and stressed about until he was practically tearing out his hair and biting through his pencils. In those moments, Ronan wanted to wrap him up and finally show him the softness Ronan kept inside at all times, show Adam the softness he deserved to feel.

Instead, he brushed past Adam into the small room, looking at him with a bored expression even though his heartbeat would have revealed it if Adam could hear it as much as Ronan could feel it.

“What do you want?” he asked, his words venom on his tongue.

Adam sighed as if he was already tired from the conversation, tired from Ronan. It set him off even more.

“To talk.”

Adam nodded his head to his mattress and sat down, staring up at Ronan until he sat down too.

“I don’t have anything to say,” Ronan tried but Adam pretended not to hear him. Instead, he looked at the sunset happening outside of the window that now had his attention. Ronan desperately wanted to get Adam’s eyes back on himself.

“You’ve never acted this way with Chainsaw,” Adam said, pricking through every layer Ronan had wrapped himself up with. “Something is wrong.”

“What do you care?” Ronan asked, hiding his desperation for Adam’s caring nature behind a disinterested tone, his hands buried in the pockets of his jacket to match the attitude even though he did it for the added benefit of feeling the heat of Adam’s skin through the leather of his jacket.

“You’re my friend,” Adam said like it was something simple. Ronan wanted to tear himself apart.

“She’s attached to you,” Ronan mumbled, willing for Adam to understand him without having to say anything more. 

He didn’t understand it and even if he did, he didn’t let anything on.

“What do you mean?”

“She’s always around you. Sitting on your shoulder and shit,” Ronan said. Adam understood it as it was, the only explanation he was willing to give.

“Wait a minute,” Adam said and Ronan knew this was the end. “Are you jealous.”

Ronan Lynch didn’t lie but that didn’t mean he had to tell the truth either. 

They stayed silent for a few seconds, watching as the sun fully disappeared and left them in the darkness, unable to see anything but the shimmer of leftover light outside. 

Everything was easier in the dark.

“Are you jealous of me or are you jealous of Chainsaw?”

Ronan swallowed hard.

Adam took his hand, tangling their fingers together. Slight tremors were going through the muscles of Adam’s hand, revealing his own nerves at this development. 

It made Ronan feel a little better.

“I don’t like a bird better than I like you,” Adam offered with a small laugh, a way out, a way for Ronan to laugh along with him and forget this happened. 

“Do you like me?” Ronan asked instead, letting the desperation he felt bleed through his words. It was the one chance he gave Adam to say something or he would try to get over him even though it felt like Adam had nestled himself in his heart much like Chainsaw had nestled himself against Adam’s chest the night before. Secure and unmovable.

He felt rough fingertips on his jaw and couldn’t suppress the goosebumps rising on his skin. He couldn’t see Adam come nearer but he felt his breath mingle with his own, his lips close enough if he had the courage to lean forward.

He didn’t have the courage.

Adam had.

The kiss was slow, soft, nothing like either of them but right enough it made something unfurl in his chest.

“Does that answer your question?” Adam asked, a whisper against his lips before he was pulled into another kiss. 

It wasn’t until they were breathless and lying down on Adam’s shitty mattress, unable to hold themselves up anymore, only illuminated by the soft glow of the bedside table light Adam had quickly turned on, that Chainsaw joined them, bumping her head against Ronan’s hand apologetically.

Ronan smiled unguardedly at her, giving her some crumbed crackers from his pocket he had kept there just in case she came flying back to him. 

“You’re still my favourite girl,” he told her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “Don’t tell the maggot.”

He felt Adam’s eyes on him but for once he felt unafraid and looked back like he had wanted to do since the moment they met.

Adam smiled at him, his lips stretching over his teeth, and Ronan forgot what he had been jealous about in the first place.

**Author's Note:**

> You can also follow me on [Tumblr](clawsnbeak.tumblr.com)! Kudos and comments are always very appreciated <3


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